Nov 04
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhannouncements
Title: The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis
Series Title: Routledge Handbooks in Applied Linguistics
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
http://www.routledge.com/
Book URL: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415709781/
Editor: James Paul Gee
Editor: Michael Handford
Hardback: ISBN: 9780415551076 Pages: 694 Price: U.S. $ 225.00
Paperback: ISBN: 9780415709781 Pages: 694 Price: U.S. $ 55.95
Abstract:
Editor’s Note: This is a new edition of a previously announced book.
The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis covers the major approaches to Discourse Analysis from Critical Discourse Analysis to Multimodal Discourse Analysis and their applications in key educational and institutional settings. The handbook is divided into six sections: Approaches to Discourse Analysis, Register and Genre, Developments in Spoken Discourse, Educational Applications, Institutional Applications and Identity, Culture and Discourse.
The chapters are written by a wide range of contributors from around the world, each a leading researcher in their respective field. All chapters have been closely edited by James Paul Gee and Michael Handford. With a focus on the application of Discourse Analysis to real-life problems, the contributors introduce the reader to a topic, and analyse authentic data.
The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis is vital reading for linguistics students as well as students of communication and cultural studies, social psychology and anthropology.
Oct 25
eldoneducation and academia education
a topic a little to the left of language pedagogy, but any pedagogy is, after all, language-based.
sir ken robinson (sure i’ve never heard of him either, and one suspects anyone knighted) talks of why education is not working so well in this day and age, and in the US.
of course, he may need to hear of LCT theory…
but we should not be so complacent here, as anything the US does, we seem to want to *ape*
Oct 23
ThE CLOwNannouncements
First Call for Papers
First International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) Conference, IACS-2014
September 25-27, 2014
Lund, Sweden
http://conference.sol.lu.se/en/iacs-2014
IACS-2014@semiotik.lu.se
The First International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS) Conference (IACS-2014) will be held in September 25-27, at Lund University, Sweden. Founded in Aarhus, Denmark, on May 29, 2013, The International Association for Cognitive Semiotics aims at the further establishment of Cognitive Semiotics as the trans-disciplinary study of meaning, combining concepts, theories and methods from the humanities and the social and natural sciences. Central topics are the evolution, development of, and interaction between different semiotic resources such as language, gestures and pictorial representations.
Plenary speakers
* Søren Brier, Copenhagen Business School
* Merlin Donald, Queens University
* Brian MacWhinney, Carnegie Mellon University
* Cornelia Müller, European University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder)
* Raymond Tallis, University of Manchester
Theme of the conference: Establishing Cognitive Semiotics
Over the past two decades or so, a number of researchers from semiotics, linguistics, cognitive science and related fields, from several European and North American research centres, have experienced the needs to combine theoretical knowledge and methodological expertise in order to be able to tackle challenging questions concerning the nature of meaning, the role of consciousness, the unique cognitive features of mankind, the interaction of nature and nurture in development, and the interplay of biological and cultural evolution in phylogeny. The product of these collaborations has been the emergence of the field of Cognitive Semiotics, with its own journal (http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cogsem) and academic association. The conference aims both to celebrate this, and to look forward into possibilities for further development.
We invite the submission of 400 word abstracts for one of the three categories:
1. Oral presentations (20 min presentation + 5 minute discussion)
2. Posters (at a dedicated poster session)
3. Theme sessions (3 to 6 thematically linked oral presentations, introduced by a discussant.
The individual abstracts should be preceded by an abstract for the theme session as a whole. In case the theme session is not accepted, individual abstracts will be reviewed as submissions for oral presentations.)
The abstracts can be related, though need not be restricted, to the following topics:
. Biological and cultural evolution of human cognitive specificity
. Cognitive linguistics and phenomenology
. Communication across cultural barriers
. Cross-species comparative semiotics
. Evolutionary perspectives on altruism
. Experimental semiotics
. Iconicity in language and other semiotic resources
. Intersubjectivity and mimesis in evolution and development
. Multimodality
. Narrativity across different media
. Semantic typology and linguistic relativity
. Semiosis (sense-making) in social interaction
. Semiotic and cognitive development in children
. Sign use and cognition
. Signs, affordances, and other meanings
. Speech and gesture
. The comparative semiotics of iconicity and indexicality
. The evolution of language
Abstracts should be submitted at the site: http://conference.sol.lu.se/en/iacs-2014
Important dates
. Deadline for abstract submission (theme sessions): 31 Dec 2013
. Deadline for abstract submission (oral presentations, posters): 1 Feb 2014
. Notification of acceptance (theme sessions): 15 Feb 2014
. Notification of acceptance (oral presentations, posters): 1 April 2014
. Last date for early registration: 1 July 2014
Local organizing committee
. Mats Andrén
. Johan Blomberg
. Anna Redei Cabak
. Sara Lenninger
. Göran Sonesson
. Jordan Zlatev
Oct 13
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Now available: a brand new app for smartphones and tablets: Academic Writing in English (AWE), available for free from the Apple App Store and from Google Play.
AWE is a complete course designed to help you improve your academic writing assignments, such as: – class essays; – exam essays; – experimental reports; – scientific essays; – dissertations; – academic articles.
AWE includes: – an in-depth self-learning course covering the entire creative process of academic writing; – interactive exercises that help you learn; – checklists for reviewing your critical thinking, your arguments and your essay as a whole; – an extensive glossary of important terms.
AWE also provides easy tips for avoiding plagiarism, conducting research, thinking critically, making strong arguments and presenting your work well.
Coming soon (also free): English Spelling and Punctuation (ESP).
Already available (in a free and paid version): the interactive Grammar of English (iGE). For more information, see: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/apps/
Oct 12
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhbook review
EDITOR: Ruth Wodak
EDITOR: John E. Richardson
TITLE: Analysing Fascist Discourse
SUBTITLE: European Fascism in Talk and Text
SERIES TITLE: Routledge Critical Studies in Discourse
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2012
REVIEWER: Rubén Moralejo, Universidade de Vigo
SUMMARY
This volume, edited by Ruth Wodak and John E. Richardson, contains a series of
studies which shed light on the continuities and discontinuities of European
fascist discourse. Within the context of European politics, extreme right-wing
populism is (re)presented as an alternative to the political, social and
economic impasse. It seems necessary, from a discourse-analytical perspective,
to critically approach their talk and text in order to determine whether a
fascist “ideological core” (5) still constitutes such contemporary political
practices and by which means the concrete historical conditions mediate a
process of discursive recontextualisation.
Wodak and Richardson set up the main goals as well as the general theoretical
and critical point of departure of the volume in “European Fascism in Talk and
Text — Introduction”. One of the first questions they ask has to do with the
difficulty in reaching an agreement regarding a definition of fascism. Despite
the apparent consensus among historians — Griffin’s definition as
“palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism” (1998:13) is considered the most
accurate and encompassing — a brief look into the literature shows that a
critical, context-sensitive approach constitutes a more appropriate research
strategy. One of the functions of (Critical) Discourse Studies is to situate a
particular text (or talk) in dialectical relation to other texts and other
social phenomena; that is, to contextualise it. However, for this process of
reinterpretation to function critically, its focus cannot be reduced to
synchronic, isolated, concrete social facts. On the contrary: one of the main
epistemological assumptions of the authors is that processes of social
transformation are in part processes of discursive transformation. They can be
analysed in terms of chains of events which are usually involved in a struggle
for social hegemony. Thus, the only way to give account of such changes is by
adopting a historical-diachronic perspective that paves the way for conducting
a longitudinal, comparative study that considers intertextuality and
interdiscursivity as one of the main loci of such struggle.
In the second chapter, “Radical Right Discourse Contra State-Based
Authoritarian Populism: Neoliberalism, Identity and Exclusion after the
Crisis”, Daniel Woodley argues that when revisionist historiography considers
fascism as a “totalitarian religion” (17) there is no space left for
envisioning the reciprocal relationship between right-wing populism and
neoliberalism. This misleading characterisation is founded on an idealised
notion of ideology which considers it a separate, content-based set of
beliefs, arguments and ideas that exist apart from the material conditions
that in part determine the social reality of fascist discourse. Woodley’s aim
consists of distancing himself from this academic obfuscation by examining the
precise social function of extreme right-wing populism in the context of the
current global socialisation of capitalist production as well as its inherent
class antagonism. The definition of fascism provided by the author considers
its capitalist-rooted instrumentality, in terms of how both the political and
the corporate elites merge in the form of a dictatorship appealing to
“fetishized identity-driven consumption” (23). These two apparently distinct
positions, neoliberalism and neoconservatism, operate reciprocally; they are
both counterparts, political commodities that collaborate with each other in
constituting and securing the effective functioning of capitalist ideology.
In “Italian Post-war Neo-Fascism: Three Paths, One Mission?” (chapter 3),
Tamir Bar-On focuses on the rise of three neo-fascist — or “revolutionary
right-wing” (43) — strategies in post-war Italy: the creation or adoption of
the institutional form of the party (parliamentary neo-fascism); organising
and engaging in political practices outside the scope of institutionalised
politics (extra-parliamentary neo-fascism); and the most recent “metapolitical
neo-fascism” (45), which withdraws from practices directed at gaining
immediate access to power in favour of a more cultural, theoretical approach.
Such strategies are not mutually exclusive: they complement each other. They
find their unifying principle in undertaking the eradication of liberal
democracy and multiculturalism. Hence, it is in this sense of radical
transformation where Bar-On identifies the revolutionary character of fascism.
A further line of reasoning for the latter is provided by the author when he
mentions the increased Europeanism present in contemporary fascist discourses,
certifying the trans-national character of their future prospects. It is
mainly via the parliamentary and the metapolitical paths that fascism
(re)organised itself in Italy after the War; the result of a tactical
displacement from the risky (and socially repudiated) directness of the
violent revolt to the legitimising frameworks of liberal democracy and the
European intelligentsia.
In chapter 4, “The Reception of Antisemitic Imagery in Nazi Germany and
Popular Opinion — Lessons for Today” Andreas Musolff assesses the extent to
which the ‘parasite’ metaphor underlying Nazi anti-Semitic discourse impelled
identification or acknowledgment within German popular discourse. The author
embraces the interdisciplinary scope provided by Discourse-oriented Metaphor
Analysis, which encompasses Cognitive Metaphor Analysis, Critical Discourse
Analysis and Discourse History. Metaphors call forth narrative and
argumentative scenarios by means of which certain entities are signalled as
unmarked, whereas others receive particular “socioethical evaluations” (58).
These may, according to historical and discursive contexts, crystallise and
function as action-guiding ‘tenets’. In the case of the ‘parasite’ metaphor, a
schema of infection-crisis-therapy is brought about, yet transposed to Nazi
anti-Semitic imagery: the Jewish race is portrayed as the enemy parasitizing
the German body, the cause of the ‘illness’; as a precondition to the healing
process, the parasite has to be annihilated. Musolff shows how the use of this
metaphor was central to Nazi discourse from the very first moments of the
Third Reich. In fact, the ‘Jew-parasite’ core of the metaphor has survived
through the years. However, he also highlights the presence of discontinuities
concerning the therapy-through-parasite-annihilation scenario, which has been
subjected to variation depending not only on changes in the sociopolitical
context but also in relation to the degree of acceptability granted by the
public.
According to Jakob Engel and Ruth Wodak (“‘Calculated ambivalence’ and
Holocaust Denial in Austria”), since the end of World War II, Austria has
undergone a process of identity re-formation that has been characterised by
the obfuscation of its involvement in the genocide against the Jews. This
process has been expressed in Postwar Austrian legislation through the
approval of the Verbotsgesetz (the prohibition law). Using a
Discourse-Historical Approach, the authors inquire into the controversy around
a series of public interventions made by two Austrian right-wing politicians
from the Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (Freedom Party of Austria), John
Gudenus and Barbara Rosenkranz. Their denial of the Holocaust comprises
“strategies of positive self- and negative other- presentation” and
“strategies of justification and legitimation” (78). The authors focus on
three discursive strategies: referential, predicational, and justificatory
strategies. One of the conclusions they draw refers to the notion of
calculated ambivalence, a dispositive intended to convey a twofold meaning to
different audiences by means of the same utterance. The calculated ambivalence
evidenced in the discourse of Gudenus and Rosenkranz is strategically
construed to avoid the transgression of the Verbotsgesetz — and thus avoid
legal punishment — and to effectively transgress it by means of justifying
and reproducing, although in an ‘encrypted’, ambivalent manner, the denial of
the Holocaust.
In “German Postwar Discourse of the Extreme and Populist Right”, by Claudia
Posch, Maria Stopfner and Manfred Kienpointner, the search for an
all-encompassing definition of fascism is raised again. They claim that the
available, most widely accepted definitions may come in handy when trying to
categorise empirical data as manifestations of fascist thought and propaganda.
They give an overview of German-speaking countries’ history of extreme
right-wing parties, and collect a corpus of texts recently broadcast in
different media. This diachronic-historical contextualisation aids in
identifying significant continuities or discontinuities among the discourses
analysed. Posch, Stopfner and Kienpointner embrace a multifaceted theoretical
framework: they combine Habermas’ Theory of Argumentation, New Rhetoric,
Critical Discourse Analysis and Pragma-Dialectics. They attend to significant
instances of fascist persuasive discourse and the strategic devices they
comprise. Their analysis points to three distinct strategies of persuasion
that have developed within fascist discourse in light of the context of legal
and political conditions that constrain its more transparent manifestations:
the strategic use of indirectness; of metaphor; and of argument schemes that
may revolve around a causal fallacy. In the conclusion, the authors appeal to
a broadening of the scope of the investigation as well as the necessity to
build a more representative corpus.
Derrin Pinto, in “Education and Etiquette: Behaviour Formation in Fascist
Spain”, describes the historical context of Franco’s dictatorship in Spain as
a regime that put ideological investment in the domain of education and the
instilling of the notion of etiquette. This concept was eventually granted
the status of a curricular component, and served the regime as a means to
produce and maintain a particular social configuration. Pinto relies on a
corpus of 33 Spanish textbooks published during the period, related to the
teaching of manners and politeness. His analysis focuses on two main features:
the way ideology is embodied and constructed in terms of its particular
contents, and the concrete discursive devices intended for legitimation and
control. He contends that the texts evidence an ideology depicting a
predilection for National Catholicism (values), high society and an urban,
patriarchal way-of-life (membership), and an absolute respect for authority
(activities and norms) based upon the realisation of personal and social
objectives (goals). Pinto’s analysis shows how the expressions and mechanisms
of persuasive discourse functioned as an ideological tool for legitimation, as
in the case of the recurrent use of the deontic modality to communicate a
sense of duty and obligation. He also explores the continuities and
discontinuities of this ideology regarding contemporary Spanish textbooks.
Cristina Marinho and Michael Billig’s “The CDS-PP and the Portuguese
Parliament’s Annual Celebration of the 1974 Revolution: Ambivalence and
Avoidance in the Construction of the Fascist Past” brings into focus the
insuperable distance evidenced in the simultaneous articulation in discourse
of the rhetorical surface and the ideological depth — calculated ambivalence
that sustains a democratic façade while simultaneously addressing to the ‘old’
fascist ideological core. Through an analysis of parliamentary speeches of the
Portuguese Centro Democrático e Social Partido Popular (Social and Democratic
Centre Popular Party) which were given at annual commemorations of the 1974
Revolução dos Cravos, they show how this discursive duplicity manifests in a
context-dependent fashion and, as they conclude, how the
parliamentary-annual-celebration setting itself is a precondition for such
ambivalence to function effectively.
The next chapter (“Continuities of Fascist Discourses, Discontinuities of
Extreme-Right Political Actors?: Overt and Covert Anti-Semitism in the
Contemporary French Radical Right”) aims at dismantling some implications of
the discontinuity theory: the diachronically-evidenced idea that, given the
transformation within French political discourses with regard to the
non-acceptability of anti-Semitism, extreme-right discourses have withdrawn
from signalling the Jew as the ultimate antagonist, favouring other new
“ethnic tensions” (163). Brigitte Beauzamy critically analyses contemporary
radical-right anti-Semitic discourses, such as those of Le Pen’s party, Front
National, and the Nouvelle Droite, as well as the discourse of Kemi Seba, a
French Afrocentric activist. She contends that there is a maintenance of the
‘old’ fascist nucleus regarding anti-Semitism, of which one significant
instance can be found in the discourse of Kemi Seba. This discursive
continuity leads, according to Beauzamy, to the reaffirmation of the
traditional anti-Semitic ideology.
John E. Richardson’s chapter “Racial Populism in British Fascist Discourse:
The Case of COMBAT and the British National Party (1960-1967)” deals with old
and contemporary British fascism. The author proposes a framework informed by
Critical Discourse Analysis and the Discourse-Historical Approach, especially
regarding the latter’s conceptualisation of context as comprising four
interconnected levels, which is crucial for the task of exposing the
continuities and discontinuities of certain semiotic entities within
discourse. Richardson focuses on the British National Party’s (BNP)
anti-Semitic discourse. After offering a diachronic outline of the main
strategies that can be found in British fascist discourse, Richardson
concludes that, despite having abandoned univocal allusions to anti-Semitism,
the discourse of the BNP still retains the traditional British fascist
ideological core. The difference is that contemporary discourses rely on a
recontextualisation that avoids any explicit reference to ‘old’ fascism
(mostly due to legal constraint and a self-interest for gaining adepts), on
the one hand, and rehabilitates the same traditional fascism, on the other.
“Variations on a Theme: The Jewish ‘Other’ in Old and New Antisemitic Media
Discourses in Hungary in the 1940s and in 2011,” by András Kovács and Anna
Szilágyi, considers the controversy that sprouted as a consequence of the
appearance of extreme-right organisations in European post-Communist
countries. Specifically, the authors focus on Hungarian media discourses.
Determining whether these new political forces consist of just another
variation of generic fascism (continuity) or constitute a singular, genuine
political movement in its own right (discontinuity) has proved unsatisfactory.
One of the possible continuities is the professed anti-Semitism of the current
Hungarian extreme right. This connection is confirmed in their analysis, which
distinguishes the main patterns of anti-Semitic discourses displayed in two
Hungarian newspapers published during the 1940s. They look for similar
discursive patterns in the case of two Hungarian news portals dating from
2011. To support their claim that ‘old’ fascist patterns continue to appear in
the discourses of current extreme-right media, they examine discursive
strategies of othering that appear to coincide in both cases: Jews are
referred to as the relevant other, and the stereotypes employed in depicting
the other along with the argumentation schemes at work — such as the
“victim-victimiser reversal” (209) — are recurrent in both historical
moments. However, Kovács and Szilágyi also point out some significant
differences. For example, the Jewish ‘menace’ is now regarded not so much as
being confined to the Hungarian borders as constituting a global threat.
Finally, the authors also discuss the function of anti-Semitic discourse:
whereas it served traditional fascism as a compelling means for mass
mobilisation, nowadays it works as a medium to foster group identity.
“The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right: The Case of VO Svoboda” deals with the
Ukrainian case. Per Anders Rudling studies the history of far-right political
movements in the country, attending not only to the ideological, political
aspects evidenced in their behaviour but also to the conditions that cleared
the way for their rise and propagation. He argues that the current Ukrainian
situation is the result of a strategy of rehabilitation of far-right ideology.
This development was marked by the neo-fascist instrumentation of history: the
glorification of certain, salient historical characters or events for both
legitimating its existence and mobilising its audience. Such a strategy was
not so much enacted within the political sphere but primarily fulfilled by the
far-right Ukrainian intelligentsia, i.e. through the work of revisionist
historians who have constructed and theorised a national cosmology that relies
on the self-victimisation of Ukrainian fascists.
In “New Times, Old Ideologies? Recontextualisations of Radical Right Thought
in Post-Communist Romania,” Irina Diana Mădroane analyses the multiple layers
of meaning implied in contemporary, extreme-right Romanian discourses.
Mădroane contends that, given the on-going process of fascist rehabilitation
in Romania, these meanings are intentionally administered as part of the
process. The author discusses the post-Communist context and the appearance of
the New Right as the main representative of the increasing radical right
manifestations in the country. This political movement is mainly informed by
the Legionary doctrine. Mădroane’s framework comprises Critical Discourse
Analysis and the Discourse Historical Approach, and she focuses on the ways in
which intertextuality and interdiscursivity may serve to evidence a process of
discursive recontextualisation. An analysis of a series of texts appearing on
the New Right’s website shows that the process of identity reshaping is
sustained by three discursively-mediated strategies: an ultra-nationalist
rhetoric indebted to the Legionary mythology, discursive strategies of
exclusion and rejection of the threatening Others, and strategies of
transformation, which consist in the self-characterisation of the movement in
messianic terms.
In the next section, Anton Shekhovtsov (“European Far-Right Music and Its
Enemy”) considers the extreme right music scene. He specifically looks into
the construction of the Enemy and the discursive resources mobilised to that
end within the lyrics of various White Power songs. Shekhovtsov claims that
the sources of inspiration of White Power music coincide with those of some
extreme right political movements. For example, the Jew is usually portrayed
as the pivotal element between the Other and the System. The study evidences
the narrow relationship between White Power music and its political
counterpart, arguing that far-right music should not be regarded as a ‘soft’
manifestation of extreme right ideology. On the contrary, its role as an
inherent element of the ultra-nationalist political expression must not be
underestimated.
The concluding chapter, “The Branding of European Nationalism: Perpetuation
and Novelty in Racist Symbolism”, is by Mark McGlashan. Embracing a Discourse
Historical Approach, he considers the significant rhetorical features that can
be found in the symbolic practices of several political parties. The notion of
political branding is foregrounded as a multimodal, analytic tool that may be
helpful in identifying the “symbolic realisations of racism” (299) within the
logos of European nationalist parties. McGlashan presents several case studies
from different national contexts. He points to the continuities between
extreme-right discourses and the visual symbolism involved in the branding
strategies of political organisations. Not only do the logos point to similar
referents, but they are also strategically constructed by means of similar
procedures.
EVALUATION
This volume can be regarded as a contribution to the on-going trend in
Discourse Studies which focuses on the dynamics between language and other
significant social phenomena. What is distinctive about this study is its
interdisciplinary approach to the political discourses of the new European
extreme right. No other systematic analysis is currently available in which
such a comprehensive survey of the historical dynamics involving contemporary
(neo)fascist discourse is provided — with the exception of another volume
recently published of which Ruth Wodak is also one of the editors (Wodak,
Khosravinik & Mral 2013).
The combination of methodologies involving critical discourse analysis (CDA —
Fairclough 1995, 2001) and the discourse-historical approach (DHA — Reisigl
& Wodak 2009) responds to the necessity of theorising the context — that is,
to integrate the context-sensitivity potential of DHA into the general
framework of CDA. This allows the authors to fulfil their goal of determining
continuities and discontinuities regarding a fascist discursive nucleus and
its contemporary manifestations by means of comparative diachronic case
studies. They find that this nucleus has survived the passage of time, whilst
some of its particular forms are highly context-dependent and vary in
different ways.
Given their consensus on the importance of context in approaching discourse,
the authors offer more or less exhaustive accounts of the historical
conditions of the countries involved. This, along with the technical and
theoretical sections, amounts to a widening of the potential audience for the
volume, which already includes researchers engaged in the academic study of
language, and also scholars and students interested in contemporary politics.
Certain common orientations can be found in the book: the aforementioned
theoretical and methodological assumptions from which the case studies depart,
their shared purpose of attending to the continuities and discontinuities of
the discourses analysed and the critical perspective they adopt. The fact that
almost every chapter is devoted to a different European country contributes to
a general picture of far-right movements in present time. The results of some
case studies presented in the book show how European far-right rhetoric is
shifting from a nationalist to a more trans-national scope. The diversity of
the case studies is helpful in perceiving the different modalities of the
symbolic practices as well as the ways in which they intertwine and act
simultaneously in the process of (re)production of the symbolic order.
The book was not conceived as a theoretically oriented work. Nonetheless, a
more detailed account of some notions could have been useful. For instance,
the idea that there is a core ideology seems to be broadly accepted, and even
though there is much discussion about the difficulty of defining fascism and
the idiosyncratic aspects involved in the very gesture of defining it,
significant sources that could have been relevant concerning this issue are
not discussed or just circumstantially mentioned (e.g. Thompson 1984 and Žižek
1989 onwards). Another aspect related to ideology involves the implicit
idealisation of democracy that has a twofold function: because it works as the
point of neutralisation of ideology, it stands for a zero-level from which the
other discourses are characterised.
For future research on political discourse and the current status of the
European far right, this volume stands out as a referent inasmuch as it
provides readers with a wide-ranging perspective on the discursive resources
on which right-wing political forces rely in pursuing their goals. A possible
continuation of this study could be to approach these discourses not just as
instances of (neo)fascist ideology that threaten the foundations of today’s
democracy but, conversely, as complementary social phenomena that function
within the limits of a common (globalised) ideological framework. An
exceptional illustration of this point is provided in Pinto’s chapter. He sets
up a preliminary comparative study involving Civics textbooks under Franco and
current Education for Citizenship manuals, concluding that “the two
contemporary books appear to employ many of the same linguistic devices with
regard to the discourse structure and the mechanisms of legitimation and
control that were found to be recurring in the Franco texts” (139). Moreover,
the only significant difference he finds between these two texts has to do
with the rhetoric of equality: “imbalanced relations of power, similar to
those of the past, continue to exist” (140). How is it, then, that under the
European allegedly-democratic framework and beside decades of legislation and
social non-acceptability, fascism still thrives as a mobilising force? This
apparent contradiction fades away once the complementarity between democratic
and fascist discourses as well as their function under the capitalist global
social order are acknowledged.
REFERENCES
Fairclough, Norman. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis. Boston: Addison Wesley.
Fairclough, Norman. 2001. Language and Power (2nd edition). London: Longman.
Griffin, Roger (ed.). 1998. International Fascism: Theories, Causes and the
New Consensus. London: Arnold.
Reisigl, Martin & Ruth Wodak. 2009. The discourse historical approach. In Ruth
Wodak & Michael Meyer (eds.). Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. London:
Sage. 87-121.
Thompson, John B. 1984. Studies in the Theory of Ideology. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Wodak Ruth, Majid Khosravinik & Brigitte Mral (eds.). 2013. Right-Wing
Populism in Europe. Discourse and Politics. London: Bloomsbury.
Žižek, Slavoj. 1989. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Rubén Moralejo is a doctoral student at the Universidade de Vigo (Spain).
Currently, he is doing research on the role ideology plays within the context
of (industrial) production. He focuses on the relation between language,
ideology and society. His research interests have to do with the critical
study of the ideology of capitalism.
Oct 08
eldonsuitable quotations academia, identity
excerpts from:
the INTRODUCTION to
Anthony Wilden, 1972[1980]: System and Structure: Essays in communication and exchange
“The reader will already have noted that, if there is one constantly recurring question for a critical and ecosystemic viewpoint, it is the real and material question of context. Obviously, the academic discourse, as well as the dissenting academic discourse, has signification only in terms of the real context in which it occurs. As has been pointed out, the systemic characteristics of this context, with its recognized and unrecognized codings of goals, are ultimately dependent on particular types of socioeconomic organization in history.
“One hypothesis of these essays is that the assumption or goal of ‘pure’ knowledge is an outworn rationalization. ALL KNOWLEDGE is INSTRUMENTAL. In the terms of modem communications theory, information (coded variety) is everywhere, but knowledge can occur only within the ecosystemic context of a goalseeking adaptive system peopled by goalseeking required to ask how the knowledge has been coded and filtered; and what it is being used for, and for whom.” xxix
“Thus one of the contexts of knowledge is the temporal context: past, present, and future. But the ideology of pure or objective knowledge to which the academic is expected to owe allegiance – besides protecting teachers and researchers from questions about the actual use value of their work – cannot deal adequately with time and place. It is an absolutist, non-contextual, non-temporal morality akin to that of a fundamentalist religion.
This is a fundamentalism that depends first on the misconstruction of closure and context; second on the correlative lack of understanding that contexts have levels; and third or on its inability to deal with the real questions of logical typing in biological and social systems….
“For example, the necessary abstraction of a system from its context in order that it may be studied – which should of course be accompanied by an overt attempt to avoid decontextualization by understanding the potentially paradoxical effects of such an abstraction – is quite commonly used, implicitly, to justify the pretended and actual abstraction or isolation of researchers from THEIR many contexts: from their socioeconomic status in a heterarchy of academic privilege, for example; from their actual functions in a system of liberal indoctrination; and from their spoken and unspoken commitments to ideological and political views – all of which the student may expect to find in one t in transformation or another in their work and in their teaching.” xxx
“Moreover, besides its historically peculiar attempts at closure from its real context and indeed from and between many of its own parts, the scientific discourse appears to have been composed by the inhabitants of Flatland (Abbott, 1884). We know that the discourse displays a dogged incapacity to deal adequately with system-environment relations (both practical and theoretical), even when they are considered on a single plane. But this incapacity becomes almost insignificant when understood within the context of the extraordinary ingenuity with which the scientific discourse persistently fails to recognize the realities of LEVELS OF RELATION and of RELATIONS BETWEEN LEVELS in open systems, in their environments, and, above all, between system and environment.” xxxiii
” The basic model used by the social-contract systems theorists, however, obscured by their reaction to the Newtonian atomism of ‘The whole is the sum of its parts’ by the less overt atomism of what is sometimes mistaken for holism, the dictum that ‘The whole is MORE than the SUM of its parts’, it still confers on the parts an ontological over their relations. The revised dictum is thus a form of PSEUDOHOLISM.
…..Thus, apart from considering the boundary relationship represented as existing between system and environment as such, one key characteristic we should look at is the representation of the boundaries – and KINDS of boundary – said to exist between the various subsystems within the whole…” xxxix
“What I am arguing, then, is that from two directions, as it were –
from the projection of the Imaginary status of the ‘self into
everyday life’ and from the projection of the private-property
relations of the dominant mode of production under capitalism
(private property being quite distinct from the PERSONAL property
with which it is often ideologically confused), from the projection
of these novel relations of possession and production into the domain
of biology and psychology – there arises in the scientific discourse
a complex network of confused relations which by successive
abstraction from the Real comes to masquerade in academia and in
business as ‘systems theory’, as the theory of ‘interpersonal
communication’, as ‘environmental’ as ‘administrative communications
theory’ (or management by outright manipulation), or indeed as any
number of other profitable or even pathological modes of translating
an original alienation of the person into the production and
reproduction of the self as a commodity. xlii
“That the boundary between you and me might actually be distinct from both of us together, and not the double edge of the private property of our selves, for example; or that this boundary we share with others might also be the actual locus of all communication and exchange between us – such co-dependency in the Real seems not even to modem systems philosophy. Boundaries, far from being barriers, are the locus of relations for open systems in reality; and it is our relation to these boundaries, including our discovery of them and their discovery of us, which surely makes us what we become.” xlii
“For, where Relativity tells us that all physical standpoints for observation are ultimately equivalent (equally valued), and where Indeterminacy tells us that at a certain level all such observations become equivalent (equally indeterminate) – both of which are
clearly true – the liberal aspects of the dominant ideology, in one of its classic contradictions, tell us that all ideas and therefore all punctuations, are equal in value – which is manifestly false.” xlvii-xlviii
‘If the general contentions of this brief outline and analysis are accepted, then, since there is no demonstrable long-range survival value in the ‘pure’ knowledge, in the so-called ‘advance of science’, or in the so-called ‘civilized thought’ of the academic discourse, we might well ask ourselves what the function of the ‘unit of knowledge’ in the particular kind of bourgeois kinship system represented by the university can possibly be.
The answer is not far to seek. The function of the circulation of the ‘unit’ of knowledge in the academic discourse seems to be primarily that of maintaining the homeostasis of the relationships of the academic establishment. As anybody who has attended more than one academic symposium or read more than one or two scholarly journals must surely recognize, the supreme value of remaining silent when you have nothing relevant to say is not a recognized academic virtue. Somebody suggested a few years ago that the first requirement for the receipt of the Ph.D. should be a promise not to publish anything for at least ten years. But NOT to publish or perish is unthinkable in an industry whose product is ‘knowledge’. All the corporate necessities of production for the sake of accumulation under the constraints of competition would have to be rejected. Without such growth and accumulation, it is unlikely that the corporation would continue profitably to survive.” xlix
” In retrospect, it seems clear that the so-called ‘knowledge explosion’ of the past thirty years or so has little to do with knowledge as such. It has primarily to do with knowledge as a commodity produced by the ‘knowledge industry’ (dark Kerr). And like every other form of industrial production in North America today, its most significant side-effect is pollution: the pollution of minds. This explosion is an ‘information explosion’ only in the sense that the contemporary organization of the academic establishment depends upon everyone finding SOME-THING to exchange and communicate in order to obtain funds and to maintain and reproduce the system.
This communication of units of information would be perfectly rational if the university really were the ‘primitive society with ownership in common’ that its fantasies describe it to be. In reality, however, the communication processes of contemporary academia seem to serve explicitly or implicitly to deny or disavow the progressive alienation of the faculty member – and of most of the students – from any relation significantly resembling the real life of the rest of humanity, who are less privileged in terms of leisure, status, caste, and class.
Where once one might have tried to say that the work of the ‘intellectual’ or the ‘artist’ is essentially creative and unalienated, the logistics of the university’s lines of production have demonstrated that its workers are alienated laborers also (if more in the spiritual than in the material sense). Whereas workers are alienated in the classic sense because they do not fully share in the fruits of their labor, academicians are alienated because their labor is, so often, quite fruitless. Academic products – books, papers, ‘communications’, footnotes, courses – thus become the objects of Imaginary production and exchange.
The alienation of the relationships between people which this process implies is indeed a mirror, as it were, of the impotence of the academic compared with the ruthless inefficiency of the university machinery. In this context, the question of whether the units of knowledge have demonstrable use value in their exchanges becomes less and less significant. These units nevertheless express a predominant exchange value; and in this sense they are indeed useful – as currency. Unfortunately this currency was devalued by the inflation of knowledge long ago.
The system of the academic exchange e of knowledge does of course have a practical function: like the ‘primitive’ system, it is highly redundant and resistant to noise. But the collective injunction of reciprocal exchange in a ‘primitive’ and non-commoditized society – for which the environment is
the world of nature and other similarly organized groups, and in which there is ‘room to move’ both spatially and temporally – performs a symbiotic and rational function. In contrast, the existence of such an anomaly in industrialized capitalist civilization (state or private) simply contributes to the long-range instability of the system it continues to serve.
In more recent years, however, academia has been constrained, mostly by economic realities, to recognize some aspects of its anomalous situation. Research must be more ‘applied’, we hear, teaching more oriented to the ‘community’, textbooks more ‘relevant’ to ‘public service’. In form and in apparent goals such reforms sound most welcome. It is only when one examines the content of what actually happens as a result – the expansion of pseudoliberating and social control programs, such as ‘organization theory’, courses in ‘How to Communicate’, and criminology, for example that one realizes that academia has once again been enlisted, along with other parts of the media – those that have been advertising a Depression for the last few years, for instance, judging by the quantity and indeed the quality of their mass-produced and computerized fantasies academia has been enlisted in the latest of our social counter-insurgency programs: Attitude Change by Behavior Manipulation.” L – Li
“The result of the dominance of the Imaginary relation in our present world is that, not just for philosophical idealists and for mechanical materialists, but also for every one of us constrained by the structure of capitalism to offer control over the expression of our creativity as a commodity in the market-place, the Imaginary becomes the Real.
“The question of developing and teaching an academic discourse of a higher logical type than that to which we are all presently subjected returns us to the point at which we began: the question of context. In an ecosystemic perspective, the position of higher logical type is simply that which is most capable of dealing with the most context and levels of context, and that which is most capable of understanding how methodological closures – like that of logical typing itself – inevitably generate paradox. It is also that position which can explain its own relationship to the context it is in. In addition, therefore, to the traditional and relatively static logical position dependent on principles of non-contradiction and identity (the analytic epistemology) which will work INSIDE a given dimension of the system one has isolated, there is a purely epistemological requirement for a logic of a higher type, a dynamic logic SUBSUMING the first, and one which will work WHEN ONE TRIES TO CROSS THE SPATIAL, COMMUNICATIONAL, ORGANIZATIONAL, OR TEMPORAL BOUNDARIES SET UP BY CLOSURE. Such a logic Will subsume the Godelian paradoxes of analytical logic by a process of metacommunication: it is the dialectical logic, not of Hegel, but of Marx.” Lix
THE SYMBOLIC, THE IMAGINARY AND THE REAL • 3
Moreover, psychoanalysis is a socioeconomic privilege restricted to people with the money and the leisure to indulge themselves. The question of the ‘cure’ is in any case entirely debatable, and we well know that psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy in general have always been vehicles of the values of the status quo (with the extraordinary exception of Wilhelm Reich, whose theories unfortunately never matched the high level of his social commitment). And since most of us can learn to live with our hang-ups, whereas it is highly unlikely we can ever learn to live with the alienating effects of our one-dimensional, technological society, why bother with psychoanalysis at all? No one seeking a truly critical perspective would attempt to build a theory of man-and-womankind ‘ primarily on human psychology in any case, because the ‘scientific discourse of psychology is designed to deny or to omit economic content in which psychological factors come to play their part.
I shall try to show later that the axiomatic closure of most psycho analysis from that context in all its plenitude – and, I believe, in its primacy – generates purely LOGICAL problems in the theory, problems that it is not logically equipped to overcome. Thus, what appears in Bateson’s logicomathematical theory of the ‘double bind’ (Chapter V) as an OSCILLATION, necessarily appears in psychoanalysis under one form or another of a theory of REPETITION. Lacan, for instance, has appealed to Kierkegaard (Repetition, 1843) to buttress his interpretation of Freud, and yet if one looks closely at Kierkegaard’s writings, especially his Either/Or, also published in 1843, one discovers that the whole theory depends upon Kierkegaard’s inability to transcend, either logically or existentially, the paradoxical injunctions (double binds) he receives from his familial and social environment. Consequently he is condemned to oscillate interminably between an ‘either’ and an ‘or’. What appears in Bateson’s theory as a necessary response to injunctions emanating from relationships of POWER and DOMINATION in the social order, usually appears in psychoanalysis, and specifically in Lacan, as the ‘compulsion to repeat’. In this way, either the responsibility is thrown back onto the individual (via the ‘instincts’ or some other metaphor for these biomechanistic constructs), or else, as in Lacan, it is subtly transformed into a form of the ‘natural order of things’, via the paradoxes that language creates in the human condition.
Unlike the double-bind theory, both views assume a homogeneity in society which simply isn’t there, and both serve as rationalizations of domination. By refusing to deal with the relationship between power, knowledge, and oppression, they fail to see the difference, in society, between what Marcuse termed ‘repression’ and ‘surplus-repression’…. For is important. Few American theorists, for example, would seriously consider the travail of the American minorities in their struggle for elementary socioeconomic rights, simply in the terms of a ‘compulsion to repeat’ a revolt against the father (or the mother).
Oct 08
ChRIS CLÉiRIGhannouncements
The 5th Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis across Disciplines Conference (CADAAD) will take place 1-3 September 2014 and will be hosted by ELTE University, Budapest, Hungary.
CADAAD conferences are intended to promote current directions and new developments in cross-disciplinary critical discourse research. We welcome papers which, from a critical-analytical perspective, deal with contemporary social, scientific, political, economic, or professional discourses and genres. Possible topics include but are by no means limited to the following:
• (New) Media discourse
• Party political discourse
• Advertising
• Discourses of war and terrorism
• Power, ideology and dominance in institutional discourse
• Identity in discourse
• Education discourses
• Environmental discourses
• Health communication
• Business communication
• Language and the law
• *Discourses of inequality, discrimination and othering*
• *Global economic discourses and discourses of the financial crisis*
• *Discourses of political protest and civil (dis)order*
• *Neoliberalism and the new divides*
• *Anti-EU discourses*
Papers addressing the highlighted topics are especially welcome. In giving weight to these topics we wish to call to attention some of the most pressing problems currently facing Europe. We hope that CADAAD 2014 will provide a publically visible forum for critically reflecting on these issues.
We welcome papers which approach topics such as listed above from theoretical and analytical perspectives sourced from anywhere across the humanities, social and cognitive sciences, including but without being limited to the following:
• Sociolinguistics
• Multimodality
• Media and Mass Communication Studies
• Functional Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Corpus Linguistics
• Pragmatics and Argumentation Theory
• Conversation and Discourse Analysis
• Ethnography of Communication
• Discursive Psychology
• Political Science
We especially welcome papers which re-examine existing theoretical frameworks and/or which highlight and apply new methodologies.
Reflecting the diversity of topics and approaches in critical discourse studies, the following distinguished guests have confirmed their participation as plenary speakers:
• PROFESSOR RUTH WODAK (Lancaster University)
• PROFESSOR THEO VAN LEEUWEN (University of Technology Sydney)
• PROFESSOR LILIE CHOULIARAKI (London School of Economics)
• PROFESSOR ANDREAS MUSOLFF (University of East Anglia)
• PROFESSOR CRISPIN THURLOW (University of Washington)
All papers will be allocated 20 minutes plus 10 minutes for questions. The language of the conference is English.
Abstracts of 250-350 words excluding references should be sent as MS Word attachment to cadaad2014@gmail.com before 1 December 2013. Please include in the body of the email but not in the abstract itself (1) your name, (2) affiliation and (3) email address. Notifications of acceptance will be communicated by 1 March 2014.
In addition to individual papers, panel proposals may also be submitted. A list of our new panels are available at http://cadaad2014.elte.hu/ and at http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2014.
We are planning to offer a small number of bursaries to be applied for by delegates who come from disadvantaged circumstances. Application information will be provided on our website later this year.
Selected papers are planned to be published in a thematically constrained volume to be submitted to an international publisher. Other selected papers will appear in a proceedings issue of the CADAAD journal.
For further information please visit our new conference website at http://cadaad2014.elte.hu/ or http://cadaad.net/cadaad_2014 and our new Facebook page at facebook.com/Cadaad2014.
Oct 05
ThE CLOwNannouncements
The editorial team of Functions of Language (FoL) is pleased to welcome Martin Hilpert as new editor. Martin succeeds Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen, who co-founded the journal in 1994 and has been part of the editorial team ever since. Martin Hilpert is Assistant Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Neuchâtel. His work focuses on grammar and lexis, both in synchrony and in diachrony, which he studies through the use of innovative corpus-based methods. For full detail on Martin, please see his professional website at http://members.unine.ch/martin.hilpert/. While it is with great regret that we say goodbye to Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen, we are also confident that Martin will bring new energy and above all new ideas, knowledge and expertise to the editorial team.
To profile the journal even more strongly as the leading international outlet for the publication of research from the full spectrum of functionalist linguistics, the new editorial team has decided to increase the publication rhythm of the journal from two to three issues per year. The journal continues to invite papers that explore the functionalist perspective on the organization and use of natural language, seeking to bring out the fundamental unity behind the various schools of thought while stimulating discussion among functionalists. It encourages the interplay of theory and description, and provides space for the detailed analysis, qualitative or quantitative, of linguistic data from a broad range of languages.
The access Functions of Language please use the URL address below:
http://benjamins.com/catalog/fol
Sep 26
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Call Deadline: 15-Nov-2013
Call for Papers:
We invite submission of abstracts for a panel entitled “Persuasion in
Public Discourse: Functional and Cognitive Perspectives”, to be proposed as
a part of The Fifth International Conference on Critical Approaches to
Discourse Analysis across Disciplines (CADAAD 2014), which will take place
at ELTE (Loránd Eötvös University) in Budapest, Hungary, 1-3 September
2014. The proposed panel aims to investigate persuasion as a rhetorical
phenomenon, from both functional and cognitive perspectives. We welcome
papers based on authentic discourse data in the public sphere. We are in
particular interested in papers that explore how grammar and lexical choice
creates persuasive effects and, meanwhile, how such choices co-contribute
for the purpose of changing the audience’s mental states.
We are especially interested in discussions based on authentic data, with a
special focus on public discourse for its hugely influential nature at
various levels of human social life. The possible text types that we are
interested may range from the domain of politics, business, mass media to
that of religion and academia.
Submissions of 250-350 words abstracts are welcome. Please include in your
abstract: 3-5 keywords, type of data, methodology, expected outcome and
possible contribution to the field, and a list of bibliography. Please send
in a separate file containing your name, affiliation, contact details, and
a brief bio-note. Submissions are due 31 October 2013. Notification of
acceptance will be sent 15 November 2013. For inquiry or submission,
contact either of the panel conveners: Louis Wei-lun Lu (weilunlu AT gmail
DOT com) and Jana Pelclova (pelclova AT phil DOT muni DOT cz).
For More Information:
http://www.cadaad.net/cadaad_2014 (main conference website)
http://weilunlu.blogspot.cz/2013/09/panel-proposal-for-cadaad-2014.html(CFP
in full)
Sep 24
ThE CLOwNannouncements
Title: Body – Language – Communication
Subtitle: An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction Volume 1
Series Title: Handbücher zur Sprach- und Kommunikationswissenschaft / Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science (HSK) 38/1
Publication Year: 2013
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
http://www.degruyter.com/mouton
Book URL: http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/38327?format=G
Editor: Cornelia Müller
Editor: Alan Cienki
Editor: Ellen Fricke
Editor: Silva H. Ladewig
Editor: David McNeill
Editor: Sedinha Teßendorf
Electronic: ISBN: 9783110261318 Pages: 1138 Price: Europe EURO 299.00
Hardback: ISBN: 9783110209624 Pages: 1138 Price: Europe EURO 299.00
Abstract:
Questions of multimodal communication, language and embodiment have become pertinent in a wide range of research areas: cognitive science, psychology, linguistics, computer science, anthropology, sociology, semiotics, and art. What is lacking is an overview of this fast growing but highly diverse field. This reference work provides encompassing documentation of how body movements relate to language and communication. Chapters authored by leading scholars outline the scope of the phenomenon, present current and past approaches, and provide multidisciplinary methods of analysis.
It offers a perspective on the body as ‘part’ and ‘partner’ of language and communication and contributes to some of the current key issues of the humanities and the sciences: the multimodal nature of language and communication, embodiment as a resource for meaning-making and conceptualisation and as felt experience, and the emergence and evolution of language from body movements. It overcomes the longstanding dichotomy represented in the concepts of verbal and nonverbal communication, and promotes an incorporation of the body as integral part of language and communication. In 5 chapters the handbook documents the bodily and embodied nature of language.
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